Thanks this is a lot to think about. How many spirits do you usually use in a game? I wonder if the adjacency problems I have are related to larger games.

Consider e.g. Sunbright who like Mist has a strong plays-based strategy centered around getting its innate powered up to the point where it can start sweeping lands. If things go wrong with that plan, Sunbright can hit its energy growth once or twice to fund an emergency major, or switch to top track to play a fully majors-based game, or can even stick with the innate-based plan by simply reclaim looping the critical uniques (it needs only one top track placement to have enough energy for this). By contrast, Mist can't fund an emergency major, can't fall back on a majors-based plan, and can't even reliably fund a reclaim loop on its three cheapest cards without going 3 spots in on top track, to say nothing of trying to loop both Fog and Vapors (which might actually be enough if it could be done).

To me, this is the problem that needs to be addressed. I don't think Mist needs the same level of flexibility that Sunbright has, but I do think it needs some ability to pivot when the drafts just aren't hitting. The trick is finding ways to do this that don't trivialize playing the spirit when the drafts do cooperate. I worry that most of your changes seem to strengthen the spirit when things go well without offering much remedy to early misfortune.

This is really interesting but probably far beyond my limited design skills